Tag: challenge

It’s pretty grim when, on day four of a blog writing challenge, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel for blog ideas. Never fear, dear reader. I’m hoping that delightful observational insights from Singapore will keep you entertained until tomorrow. After all, there’s only so many times I can write about weddings, PhDs and my cat.

In Singapore, there’s a different seating hierarchy on public transport (hoooo boy, a public transport post already!). There really is though. In Australia, it’s pregnant women, people with disabilities, and older people who get the seats. Not you. Stand up. Go on. That’s the way. You get a warm fuzzy, the person in need gets a seat, not so complicated. Here in Singapore though, it is more complicated. There are significantly less seats. And those seats are taken way more seriously.

In Singapore, the MRT (and I really cannot speak for buses) seating hierarchy goes pregnant women, people with disabilities, kids then older people. Yes, kids are in on the seating chart here. In Singapore, people will give up their hard-fought seats for kids. Children. As in those small humans with bouncy bones and young legs. Yeah, them. They get priority over an older Aunty with two fistfuls of shopping bags. But the Aunties love it, they smile and coo, all the while eyeballing the person on the seat next door. They’re happy to give up their seat for a kid, but if they do, they damn well want yours to make up for it.

They say that the fastest you’ll see a Singaporean move is when there’s a spare seat on public transport. I’m not sure if that’s true, but what I have definitely observed is the number of people I’ve seen leap out of their seats for someone who they think is more deserving. I do hate to finish on a warm fuzzy but it’s a Friday night and I’ve had a few drinks. Happy weekend, readers!

So it would seem that 2015 has been a big year for life, but not so much for blogging. My last post was in April. April. Ouch. It has been a big year though. I started a PhD, only to go back to work in Australia for a few months. I managed an event for almost 1000 people, then promptly disappeared back into my hermit hole of academia.

On a personal note, I lost my grandma, the one I wrote about here. I had the privilege of helping my Dad write the eulogy, an experience that was both devastating and wonderful. In happier news, I am now in possession of a bona fide fiancé (yuck, there’s definitely a blog post on my hatred of that word coming soon…). Partner 2 surprised me on the side of a volcano with a ring and a question, to which I said yes. That volcano is now spewing ash into the air and disrupting the travel plans of many. Take from that what you will.

I tell you all this not out of a sense of self-importance (“Look how busy I am! Look! Validate me!”), but as more of a recap. A ‘previously on’. Some context for upcoming posts, because there’s going to be lots of them! For real! In an attempt to resuscitate this ailing piece of internet, I’m setting myself a challenge: to blog every day in the month of December. I can’t promise I will succeed or that the writing will be any good. The first few weeks could be a mixed bag: will they be light-hearted and abstract, the result of heavy procrastination? Or will they be panicked odes to the report I should be writing? Time will tell. I can promise briefing and debriefings from Partner 2’s office Christmas party, travel blogging from London, Denmark and Norway, and a birthday blog. Maybe some sort of 2015 retrospective for New Year’s Eve? I don’t know, I’m not a planner. Hence my patchy blog attendance… Anyway, hopefully I can provide some daily enjoyment for you, readers, over the course of December, or at least a welcome distraction from whatever you’re supposed to be doing. You’ll hear from me soon.

As you may know, my partner and I have recently moved to Singapore from Australia. His company moved us over so while he has been trotting off to work every day, I have not been. Thanks to a holiday that was booked way in advance, as in before we knew we were moving, I’m in the middle of seven weeks off from work. I’ve been using that time productively, or at least trying to use that time productively, there may have been some TV watched at one time or another.

Anyway, I want to be a writer, and this is the perfect chance to give it a crack and see if I have the discipline, oh and maybe the skills, to do it. So now that we are officially moved in and settled in our new apartment/suburb/city/country, it’s time to get serious. This post is to hold me to account. I’ve dabbled in a few blogging challenges, writing around different themes and not using adverbs primarily, but I stumbled across a phenomenon called NaBloPoMo. Sounds like an upwardly mobile suburb of New York but it’s short for National Blog Posting Month. Basically you sign up and write a blog a day for a month, I think around a dedicated theme. Upon further investigation, NaBloPoMo is a spin-off of NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. This is where writers, amateur and professionals, sign up and commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. Crazy, huh? When you break it down though, it’s potentially do-able. 31 days in July, minus 8 for the weekends equals 23 days. 50,000 divided by 23 days is about 2175 words a day; eight hour work day equals about 270 words an hour. Sounds achievable? I hope so, because that’s what I’m going to try and do. I’m a journalist by trade and there’s nothing like a looming deadline to get me motivated. So this is my commitment to these 50,000 words. On the side, I’ll still be blogging and writing articles, oh and probably working on my thesis… but I am going to write a novel in a month. You watch.

Disclaimer: I had a head start on today’s 2175 words so I guess tomorrow the real work begins. I’ll keep you updated but I won’t post any of the story, most likely because it will be rubbish! Wish me luck.